Front Page Fatale: The First Ida Bly Thriller

by Daniel Fox

  “The devil, of course.”

  “Of course. Thanks very much for your time.” Ida went through to the front door and started working on the four locks. She heard Theresa rummaging around behind her, reminded her of rats in garbage.

  Feet pounded down the hall toward her. She spun around, thinking the old bat was raging and was about to stab her for ignoring her story.

  It wasn’t a knife though. It was a small, flat, brown paper bag. Theresa wagged it at Ida.

  Ida took it. Looked inside. It was empty. Theresa reached out and flipped it over. On the back - a hand-drawn nightmare image, reminding her of Francis Bacon’s style. A grotesquely thin man stared back up at her. He seemed to be wearing goggles, a black apron maybe, a scarf around his mouth.

  Theresa looked up at her with scared eyes. “You best hope he doesn’t start believing in you.”

  CHAPTER 23

  George could feel them all staring at him. Talking behind his back.

  He’d had the case taken away from him. Never should have had it in the first place.

  Their condescension was a smoker’s fog in police H.Q. He was suffocating from it. He needed to get out.

  He was down to the parking garage and in his car before he even realized where he was heading – Skid Row. Why?

  What more was there for him to see or do there? Uniforms and the other detectives pulled in on the case were still doing the local interviews and following up on the phone tips. He wasn’t needed there. But he still kept heading in that direction.

  Why?

  Think it through – he had been working the girls’ shoes before he got yanked from the case. Before Ida Bly pulled the carpet out from underneath his feet. He’d had to return the shoes of course, so he couldn’t do anything more with them.

  He parked within the borders of the Row. Three young men with sketchy facial hair eyed his car, marking it to pull his hubcaps maybe once he walked off. He got out and looked down at them. The three young men turned and walked off, fast, trying to pretend like they had meant to keep going anyway and it wasn’t because they had been scared off by an angry giant monster in a food-spotted shirt and tie.

  The girl’s shoes.

  It was too bad they hadn’t found more of her clothing. Maybe she had bought a dress or some-such at the same time. It would have made tracking down the stores easier – find the two in close location to each other.

  Her clothing.

  They had never found any of the rest of her clothes.

  The shoe guy, David something. The bum. The guy perving out on her shoes.

  They had never gotten around to asking him if he had any of the rest of her clothing stashed away somewhere. They’d let him scamper off after George nearly beat him into a red mist in the interrogation room.

  That had been a bad mistake, one the rest of the cops had made. They, not George, had let him go before thinking to ask him more questions. Never mind the fact that he was a suspect. A real bad mistake if he was in fact their killer, an idea George had not dismissed. He’d said the case was chaos, back in the interrogation room. He had been right.

  The cops that had found him with the shoes in his lean-to had searched the premises and found nothing else, but that didn’t mean the guy didn’t have himself a hidey-hole somewhere. A place where he stashed his most prized possession so they didn’t get lifted when he wasn’t in his home to guard it. Maybe a spare set of his own shoes, winter clothes, a bottle of rotgut hooch, a dead girl’s underwear.

  David something. Manner? Miner? Something like that. He’d had a denim jacket. George started poking his head into tents and lean-tos, handing out one-dollar bills for information. That information led him north, behind a still-active mechanics’ garage.

  The lean-to was a tarp tied to the garage’s property fence, the other end of the tarp staked into the ground. He heard movement inside.

  He yanked up the loose piece of tarp that served as a door. David Whatever-his-last-name-was was inside, reading an ancient Redbook magazine. He smiled up at George.

  “Well hello. I was wondering if I’d see you again.”

  “How about you come out here so we can talk.”

  “Sure, sure.” David pushed his feet into boots and duck-walked until he was out from under the tarp.

  George ducked down, looked at David’s oddball collection of possessions – a cooking pot, a can opener, a filthy knitted winter hat, old magazines and newspapers, a broken wooden toy shaped like a lumberjack. An immense smell of the man’s body odour sharp enough to make it feel like it was doing physical damage to George’s sinuses. He poked around with his pencil – no female items of clothing.

  “We got off on the wrong foot.”

  “More like the wrong fist, right?” David laughed.

  George stood. “Don’t jerk me around. I’m not in the mood. Answer a couple of questions, you don’t need to see me ever again.”

  “But Detective, what if I like seeing you?”

  “When you found the girl’s shoes-”

  “I feel like we have this connection.”

  “Did you find any other-”

  “Linked together by a poor dead girl’s blood.”

  “Jesus Christ, shut up for half a second, huh?” George spoke slower, enunciating. “When you found the girl’s shoes, did you find any other items of clothing with them?”

  David stuck his hands in his pants pockets, rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. He smiled brown teeth up at George. “I can answer your question, but there’s a price.”

  George fished out his wallet. “Fine. Let’s get this-”

  David held up a hand. “Not money. That’s a cage. Information. You answer something for me, I’ll vice and versa. Yes?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Good! I must admit to one of my many sins – envy.” David pointed at his lean-to. “I’m here, now, out of the race. I’m free of pretending insipid men are my superiors. I’m clear of saying ‘yes sir’ to men I despise in exchange for some nickles and dimes. And yet, I admit, sometimes I envy them. I envy all those people able to live that life well. I envy people who can do it all so much better than I can. I hate myself for it.”

  “Is there a question in there?”

  “Sure. The question is, how about you?”

  “Say what?”

  “You’re surrounded by police everyday.”

  “Yeah?”

  David peered up at him. “Real police. And here you are, the dancing bear dressed up in a shirt and tie. What kind of fresh hell do you have to endure everyday being surrounded by people who can easily do the things you can’t no matter how hard you-”

  George grabbed him. One big hand wrapped around the bum’s filthy face. He shook him, his body flapping around under his neck like a flag.

  David’s feet skidded on the ground. His hands came up – his nails raked at George’s hand.

  George threw him against the fence, landed a right-left cross combo as the man rebounded. The bum crumpled to the ground. George kicked him, 40-yard field-goal style, maybe felt ribs crack. He stomped on one of David’s hands, shoved him over onto his back, raised a foot, yelled, then drove it down into David’s belly.

  “Hey! Hey, what’s going on there!”

  George’s head whipped around. Mechanics, looking out from the back of the garage.

  He looked down at David on the ground, curled into a ball, crying. “The hell did you make me do that for?”

  He took out his wallet again. Pulled out the cash he had remaining – two fives, three ones. “Did you find any other clothing? Hey!” Louder now, leaning down. “Did you find-”

  David shook his head no. “Just the shoes. Only the shoes. In the middle of the street. Across from the body.”

  George threw the cash down on top of him. “You blaming other men for where you’re at? Horse shit. You’re your own worst enemy, idiot.”

  He walked away, gave the fence a final kick to get extra steam out.

/>   Normally he would have glared at the mechanics, daring them to do something. This time he kept his eyes on his feet.

  CHAPTER 24

  The third tip Ida had liberated from George Schuttman’s desk – Beverly Park, a world away from Skid Row. Pure society. Big houses, pools, views across the hills.

  The address on the list took her to a two-story modern construction, lots of glass, concrete frame. Voices drifted to her from around the back of the house – a woman, and a voice she recognized, Bob Tree.

  She walked around the back, pushed her way through a tall gate without knocking. Bob and an attractive woman, make her early twenties, were seated under a sun umbrella by a crystal-blue pool. “Well hey there.”

  Bob jerked, stood up, scraping his chair. “This is my colleague from the paper, Ida Bly.” He held a hand out to the society bunny sitting there in her short shorts. “And this is-”

  “Rebecca Edelsworth. I know. You know how I know? Because I got her name-”

  “Why don’t you take my chair?” Bob turned the chair he had been seated in towards her, hustled around to the far side of the pool to grab himself another one.

  “What’s it like working side-by-side with a hero?” The girl was all wide-eyed gaga, watching Bob carry his chair back around.

  “A real treat. So what have you two been talking about?”

  Bob: “Nothing important.”

  “He’s been telling me about the war. Did you know he took out a Japanese position all by himself?”

  “No kidding?” Ida looked over at Bob. “You know what else he took?”

  “Why don’t we get down to brass tacks?” Bob seated himself across from the women. “You called a tip in to the police about the girl from Skid Row.”

  “Uh-huh. The thing is, I think I might know who she is. I mean, I’m fairly sure. Same hair, same height. She’s been missing for about a week now. She liked to... Well, I don’t like to gossip.”

  Ida scribbled on her pad. “Clearly.”

  Bob leaned forward. “She liked to what?” He smiled at the girl, making Ida grind her teeth.

  “It’s just, well... She kind of liked to mix it up with dangerous men.”

  Ida looked at her. “Why didn’t you mention that when you called in your tip?”

  “I tried! I really did. Three times, actually. But every time they just took my name and address and phone number and told me someone would get back to me when they could. Will the police put my name in a report? Will I be in the newspapers? That sounds dangerous.”

  Ida leaned back. The girl was acting scared, body shrunk in, worried hand to her chest. But that was just it... she seemed like she was acting the fear. Like it was expected of a woman in this situation, the kind of thing you’d see in the pictures. But her mouth was open, pouting a little, almost sensual.

  She looked over at Bob. His head was tilted a little, watching Rebecca. He caught Ida’s gaze, they made a connection – he was also feeling that this was off somehow.

  Bob looked back at Rebecca. “Sure. We’d have to print your name for the sake of veracity.”

  Ida: “You’re worried the killer will come after you?”

  “Would he?” A scared voice. She uncrossed her legs. One hand’s fingertips moved along her thigh. “But I guess I have no choice, right?”

  Ida and Bob exchanged another look.

  Bob leaned forward. Put his hand over the girl’s. “It must be scary for you. We understand. You’re an attractive young woman and, if you’ll forgive me, sexually alluring. It is possible that there is a man out there who would want to do horrible things to you because you’d spin him out of control. He’d be helpless.”

  The girl licked her bottom lip.

  Ida put her pencil down. “You don’t know her, do you?”

  The girl jerked, cold water thrown on a fantasy. “What? Sure I do. I mean, I think I do.”

  “Then give us a name.”

  “I just don’t want to leap into-”

  “Fine. Describe her. Other than her hair. Not stuff in the news. Did she have dimples when she smiled? She maybe have a lisp? Allergies? Off chance you know her blood type? You close friends or just acquaintances?”

  “I-”

  Bob took it up: “She have a pet? Favourite colour?”

  “She high-society like you or did she get herself bumped up a rung because of her looks or maybe because of what she was willing to do with the rich-kid boys?”

  “She have family that’s missing her? Hey!” Bob snapped his fingers in front of the girl’s eyes. “Do you or do you not have anything to tell us?”

  Rebecca’s mouth opened, closed, opened again. Scrambling to remember the story she had probably whipped up. Finally, she slumped. “I’m sorry, I was-”

  Bob stood, disgusted. “Bored, honey. You were bored. It would be a hell of a rip, huh, getting into the middle of a story like this? Get yourself in the papers. Interviews. You... you people. You goddamned people.”

  He stepped towards her. His fists clenched. “Do you not get that this guy is out there still? Huh? That maybe he’s getting the thirst again?”

  Ida stood. “Hey. Step back.”

  “And the time we spend talking to you, the time the police would have spent talking to you, that’s more time for this guy to do what he likes.” He grabbed the armrests of the girl’s chair, pinning her in, making her cringe back.

  Ida reached out a hand. “Take it easy.”

  He leaned in, almost nose to nose. “Another girl pops up like the first, tears still drying on her face, you remember that. Maybe you won’t be so bored then.”

  Rebecca was crying, quiet, afraid to sob, afraid the noise would be the last break. She gasped and held up her hands to ward off a blow as Bob jerked upright, spun on his heel, and stormed out, slamming the gate open.

  Ida watched him go. Looked back to the girl. She didn’t know which one disgusted her more.

  ***

  Bob was leaning against his car, across from the society girl’s house. There was a fantastic view of a valley behind him, one that Ida missed completely, her rage focusing her vision down to him and him alone.

  He nodded at the house. “Can you believe that?”

  She came across the street. Got in his face. “You stole my tip.”

  “It was on your desk. And it’s my story. Cliffy-”

  “Fuck Clifford and fuck you too.”

  Bob crossed his arms. “I thought we worked pretty well together in there. I was thinking-”

  “Of apologizing? Not accepted.”

  “Alright. But before you get all righteous, I think it should be pointed out that you stole the tip first. Word was making its way around the paper just before I left to come here.”

  She took a step back. “You just... you’re a nightmare. You’re a goddamned nightmare. It doesn’t matter how fast I run, I can’t get away from you.”

  “We’re all sharks. None of us ever stop swimming. And if we smell blood-”

  Ida waved her hands. “Shut up, huh? Who says shit like that? Who talks like you? Nobody.”

  Bob sighed. Opened his car’s door. “You know they bumped that big Sergeant off the case? Schuttman. They thought maybe he leaked the morgue photo to you on purpose. Scuttlebutt has it he might even get the axe. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’d suggest you stay away from City Hall for the next little while. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy you want angry at you.”

  He slid in behind the wheel. “Do you care about that? Do you care that you might get that guy fired? Not really, huh? See? You’re a shark too. The only difference between me and you is-”

  “I didn’t laugh at a dead girl.”

  Ida slammed his door in his face and made her way back across the street to her own ride.

  He saw red. He jammed open the door, got back out, chased back across the street after her. “Hey!”

  She turned at her own car. “Hey what?”

  “Did you tell anyone abo
ut that?”

  “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”

  Bob, yelling now: “Did you tell anyone?”

  “That you’re a freak? That you think a girl with her lungs ripped open is a laugh riot?”

  He got in her face this time, pointed a finger, almost touching her chin. “Who knows about that?”

  Ida looked at his face, the finger. She snorted. “What are you going to do with that? Huh? Nothing. I’ve got you figured out war hero. I’ve seen you trying to talk Clifford down, seen how you back off. I’ve seen the shaking hands when you try to hide them.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You can’t even get through some pencil-necked nothing at City Hall to get a comment from the Mayor.”

  “I swear to God you bitch, you shut your mouth or-”

  “Or what? Nothing. You’re yellow. I thought for a hot split second, back at the crime scene, I thought maybe you were the one that had killed that girl. I thought maybe you were a lunatic, you had to hide your laughing. I still don’t know what that was, but I know you didn’t kill any girl. She would have walked all over your yellow ass. Bob ‘Maddog’ Tree is nothing but a coward.”

  Bob’s hand shot to her neck. Pushed. Hard. She hit her back against her car, rebounded, staggered forwards, tripped on his leg, spun on her way down, landed on her tailbone, Bob standing over her, his face so red it was almost purple. Fists clenched and shaking, forearms popping veins. In that second Ida was sure her mouth had just gotten her ticket punched, for good this time, adios.

  It was a close thing. But Bob spun and slammed his fists down on the hood of her car instead. He slapped himself across the face. Slammed his fists down on the car again. And again. The skin on the bottom of his fists cracked, split, blood seeped out, dripped on the asphalt.

  Ida watched, looking up from the ground, frightened, horrified. She’d never seen anything like this. She had no idea what move to make. Or if she should stay perfectly still. This was completely new, and it was terrifying.

  Finally he stopped the pounding. Stood there, just breathing. Put his hands on his hips and looked down at her. “Do you know what I did overseas?”